


Love in Your Brother's Eyes

by ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Incest, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:04:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/pseuds/ariannenymerosmartell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles centered on Brandon and Lyanna</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These drabbles aren't necessarily set in the same universe, nor are they necessarily arranged in chronological order.

On the day his betrothal to Catelyn Tully of Riverrun is announced, Brandon watches his little sister slip quietly out of Winterfell’s Great Hall and disappear, as silently and swiftly as a shadow when the sun is gone.

In the midst of the revelry, the drinking, the cheers, the chants, no one notices. No one misses her.  
Brandon notices.

As soon as he can, he sets out to get her. He finds her exactly where he knew she’d be: in the godswood, hacking at branches and trees with an old sword she’d nicked from the forge. She has clearly been at it for some time. Her cheeks are flushed with exertion, and sweat dampens her brow, and back. Her hair has come undone from her braid, and hangs around her face in damp, curling tendrils.

“Lyanna,” he says, but she continues to swing and swear, as though she has not heard him.

“Lyanna,” he says again, louder this time. “Lya…”

“Leave me,” she says, sharply, still hacking away at a root. “Leave me be.”

“Lyanna,” he says, more harshly now, running out of patience. “This is foolish. Come inside.”

“And drink to your betrothed?” Lyanna sneers, grey eyes flashing. “I’ll stay here, brother.” She spits the last word as though it’s a vile curse.

She wants a fight, this sister of his. She wants to rage, and rant, and scream in the way that only she and he know how. She’s goading him. He will not give in.

“Since when do you run away from something?” he asks, nonchalantly, keeping his voice even, and leaning against a tree, watching the color in her cheeks rise even higher, and her eyes narrow. “Here I thought my sister was a brave little wolf.”

“And your wife will be a cold, little fish,” Lyanna hisses, gripping the sword more tightly. “Go on, then. Drink to that.”

Her grey eyes flash triumphantly at the way his eyes narrow and the way his hands ball into fists. Brandon takes a deep breath to steady himself, and when he speaks his voice comes out in a silken whisper, deadly and dangerous, as he takes a step toward her.

“You insult the future Lady of Winterfell.” He says, though the words sound wrong, even in his ears.

Lyanna is the Lady of Winterfell, has been since their mother died birthing Benjen. Lyanna, who was half a horse, who did sums for their father, and had managed the household at his knee since she was small. Lyanna who was the North—icy, and wild, and dangerous, and beautiful.

“No,” she says, and she holds her ground, does not step back, does not even flinch at Brandon’s movements. “I insult a Southron bitch who has no business in Winterfell,” Lyanna spits the last words as venomously as she can, and Brandon closes the distance between them, wrenches the sword from Lyanna’s grip and tosses it aside carelessly as he pins her against the trunk of a tree.

“Watch yourself, little sister,” he hisses in her ear. “That’s enough.”

“Is it?” Lyanna challenges. Though she is unarmed and he has her arms pinned, Lyanna still looks as though she could rip his throat out with her teeth.

“Is it enough?” she repeats, when he doesn’t answer. “How long before you’ll be sneaking into Barbrey Ryswell’s bed? Or mayhaps you’ll turn to Bethany next. You like maidens, don’t you? Or one of the Royce’s, I wonder.”

She laughs, and it’s a dark, bitter sound, so unlike the sweet giggles that escape her when they are both ahorse, racing through the wolf’s wood.

“So I thought,” she says, bitterly, when he cannot bring himself to hold her gaze. “Let me go, Brandon.”

“No,” he says, immediately, without thinking, eyes snapping back up to hers. Though he know she means release her, the mere idea of letting Lyanna go, is ludicrous.

“Let me go,” she repeats. “You won’t be able to touch your delicate, little wife like this. You’ll bruise her,” Lyanna says, lips curling into a sneer. “Best get used to delicate touches, brother.”

He kisses her then, roughly, with more teeth than lips, and she responds in kind, growling into his mouth. He lets go of her arms, but pushes her back against the tree and grips at her hips with a force that will surely leave marks. Her hands scrabble for purchase in his tunic, and she pulls him even closer.  
He breaks the kiss abruptly, but he does not let her go, but moves closer, rests his forehead on hers, closing his eyes, and sharing her breath. When he opens his eyes again, he sees tears beading on her lashes and he tips her face up and kisses them away, one by one.

“Let me go,” Lyanna says, for a third time, voice cracking with the effort to hold back her tears.

“Never,” Brandon whispers, and Lyanna sinks down to the floor of the godswood sobbing.

He kneels down beside her, gathers her into his arms, rocking her as though she were a babe again, the way he used to when she’d skinned her knees, before she’d toughened up.

“It’s not fair,” she whispers, when she’s caught her breath at last. “It’s not fair.”

He doesn’t speak, just strokes her back, her hair, her face, any part of her his hands can reach. When he cups her cheek, she turns her face, and presses a kiss to his palm. He feels his throat tighten.

"I’d rather die than watch you marry her," Lyanna says quietly. Her grey eyes dried now, but ringed by red, and wide and filled with something he cannot name. Jealousy? Anger? Fear.

He kisses her forehead, but feels his stomach knot with dread. He know this isn’t Lyanna simply being angry. She means it.


	2. Chapter 2

Brandon will never be sure when playing games with Lyanna in the godswood turned into something more.

It seemed that one day they were racing through the woods, challenging each other, making bets— who would do this one’s chores, who would eat something disgusting— and the next, they were wrestling on the floor, hands grasping any bit of exposed flesh, tongues pressing against the other so sweetly.

He doesn’t know what shifted, just knows that he loves his sister, that he’s grateful he’s always been the one to take her out to play. That their play has different connotations now.

Today they are playing at swords. Whomever is disarmed first is the loser, and the winner may claim whatever he or she desires. It is a wildly unfair game, and Lyanna will lose every time, but her stubbornness drives her for more, and she doesn’t mind at all when he claims his winnings by pinning her to the floor of the godswood and tickling her until she is breathless, and ghosting his hands over her breasts and thighs.

Each time she loses, each time he disarms her, Brandon touches a bit more, until the top of dress is undone and his fingers are pinching her nipples, eliciting the sweetest moans from her. He could listen to them all day, he thinks, trying to ignore how hard his cock is, both from the thrill of swordplay, and the feel of Lyanna’s breasts in his hands.

"Ready to lose again, sister?" He asks, lacing her gown back up and kissing away her whining protests.

"I shall win this time," she proclaims, standing proudly, but the wicked grin that slides over her face gives away how excited she is to lose. They’ve played this game before, and she knows exactly where Brandon’s hands will go next.

He disarms her in minutes, pulls her back to the floor, and wastes no time in baring her breasts again, teeth closing around one nipple, while one hand pushes her skirts up. He lets his fingers slide up her smallclothes, until just the tip of his finger is pressed to her entrance. As expected, Lyanna uses her legs as leverage, trying to push down on it, but he moves his hand away, and strokes up her leg instead.

"Not so fast, sister mine," he sing-songs against her breast. "I can’t very well ruin your maidenly virtue."

But how he wantsto. How desperately he wants to wrap Lyanna’s legs around his waist, and sink into her tight cunt, hard and fast, until she’s screaming his name, and clawing at his back. Until he’s spent inside of her, and can relish in the sight of her maiden’s blood on his cock.

The very thought makes him near impossibly hard, and he presses the heel of his free hand to his cock. Can’t have himself get over excited after all. As the winner, his prize is Lyanna. All of her. And right now, he wants to tease all of her, as she teases him when she sneaks into his rooms at night, straddling him and writhing on his lap until he spends in his breeches like some green boy.

He slides his hand under her smallclothes again, bypassing her entrance this time, and brushing against her clit. Lyanna moans and presses her legs together, to keep his hand there, but he pulls away again, rights her skirts, and laces up her top.

"Again, sister?" He teases, trying to keep his breathing even. It will not do for Lyanna to know just how much he wants more.

"Let’s play a different game," she says breathlessly. "I want to play monsters and maidens now. I’ll hide and you’ll come find me."

It is a children’s game, a reminder that his Lya is still a little girl, despite the way she’ll wrap her lips around his cock and beg him to fuck her, betrothals be damned.

But he acquiesces regardless, because he can never say no to her, and closes his eyes, and counts to ten, and when he opens them again, Lyanna is gone.

He bends to look for tracks, but everything is in circles from their swordplay and he cannot make heads or tails of where she could have gone. She hadn’t made any noise either, and for the life of him, Brandon cannot figure out where his sister has disappeared to.

"I give up," he calls out, exasperated, after ten minutes of searching. He misses the warmth of Lyanna’s body already, and just wants her back on the ground, beneath him, or on top of him, as he’s sure she’ll do when she claims her winnings.

He hears her giggle, and within moments sees her swing from one branch to another, before dropping gracefully onto the godswood floor. She curtseys when she lands.

"My winnings?" She says, smiling up at him, grey eyes sparkling with mischief, and he opens his arms in invitation. He is hers to do what she will.

He is surprised when she closes the distance between them and drops to her knees, undoing the laces of his breeches and taking him into her mouth.

He’d expected teasing, slow build to match what he had done to her, but this… Lyanna’s mouth wrapped around him, pushing her head forward until he can feel the tip of his cock in her throat, this is Lyanna playing to win, to render him speechless and dumb.

It’s working. He lets out a long groan and reaches out for a tree to brace himself on, sure that his knees are going to give out at any moment. But Lyanna keeps working his cock deeper into his throat, and when he feels her slide a finger into her mouth alongside his cock, he doesn’t question it, just savors the feeling of his sister, and imagines his cock sinking into her.

He’s abruptly pulled from his fantasy when he feels Lyanna’s cool, wet finger pressing at his ass, and he yelps and pushes her off his cock.

"What are you doing?!" He shrieks, in a most unmanly and undignified way. Lyanna smirks.

"Claiming my winnings," she says, pulling him close again, and pressing a kiss to his cock. "Relax."

"You were about to—" he feels himself beginning to turn red, and stops speaking. He is Brandon Stark. Heir to Winterfell. Future Warden of the North. He does not stammer and blush like a maiden.

"Shhh, brother," Lyanna soothes, running his hand up and down his leg, and licking up and down his shaft. "Shush. You’ll like it, I promise."

She takes him back into her mouth, sucking in earnest, and Brandon realizes, belatedly, as he loses himself in the feel of her mouth, that she sounds just like him when he convinces a maid to fuck him. The thought unnerves him, and somehow, makes him even harder.

Lyanna responds eagerly to that, gripping his hips in her small hands and encouraging him to move his hips. He does, amazed at how perfectly his cock fits down his little sister’s throat, when he feels her finger, back at his rear entrance, and tenses again.

Lyanna is prepared for him this time though, and grips his hips tightly so that he cannot pull her off, and presses her finger quickly into him, twisting and probing, and pushing, and…

Brandon comes so hard, he blacks out for a bit.

When he comes to, Lyanna is tucking him back into his breeches, and tying his laces, and looking entirely too smug for his liking.

"I. You." He says, unintelligibly, trying to gather his wits abut him.

"You. Me." Lyanna says calmly, and she rises and stretches up on her tiptoes to kiss him.

He can taste himself in her mouth, and now he finds that he is both confused and aroused again, but before he can kiss her properly and explore her mouth the way he wants to, she is pulling away and smirking up at him.

"I should win more often, shouldn’t I?"

Brandon doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to react, until Lyanna bends and picks up the discarded swords and holds one out to him. 

"We can play your game again now," she says, as innocently as the Maiden herself, though her lips are red and swollen from sucking his cock, and her finger has just been up— 

And suddenly he gets it. He gets what she’s after, and her grey eyes are bright with wickedness and mischief, and she’s lost every sword match they’ve had today.

She takes her stance.

"Claim your winnings properly, brother."


	3. Chapter 3

When he watches Rhaegar lay the Queen of Love and Beauty’s laurel in Lyanna’s lap, Brandon’s first thought is No. This isn’t right.

Lyanna never brushes her hair. The hems of her gowns are frequently muddy and torn. Her stitches are crooked, and she’s got a mouth fouler than his. Her shoulders are bony, her breasts almost non-existent, her hands rough and calloused. 

She is not lovely Princess Elia, with her flashing dark eyes, and sun-warmed skin, regal with every breath she takes. She is not sensual, passionate Ashara with her teasing smiles that bring men to their knees.

Lyanna is only beautiful when her skin is flushed from archery, or when she is ahorse racing through the wolf’s wood, head thrown back laughing, calling to him to catch her if he can. And when her wild wolf’s blood has her in its grip, and she rages more fiercely than any storm, voice loud and strong, Brandon doesn’t think there is any woman capable of being more passionate. 

And when she sneaks into his rooms, after his betrothal to Catelyn Tully is announced, and begs him not to make her leave Winterfell when he is Lord, and to love her always, love her best, Brandon doesn’t think there’s any creature in all the seven kingdoms and beyond half so lovely as Lyanna. 

No, Lyanna was never meant to be anyone’s Queen of Love and Beauty but _his_.


	4. Chapter 4

When their father announces her betrothal to his bannermen, the other lords of Northern lands, Lyanna sits still in her seat. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t blink, she doesn’t breathe. 

He didn’t tell her, Ned thinks with panic. She didn’t know.

The lords come up to congratulate her. They tell her that her husband will be a lucky one, laugh that she’ll boil in the South, remind her not to become too much of a Southron lady, and still Lyanna does not move. She does not smile. She nods, tight lipped, at each one. 

The more her lips thin, the more Ned’s heart sinks. She will never forgive me this, he thinks.

As the night wanes, and the other men file out, finding their way to bed, Lyanna still does not move. She sits perfectly still, back straight, head high. She is the portrait of a lady, everything their father has worked to make her, and everything she hates.

Ned has never felt so guilty.

When the hall is empty, save for him, Benjen, and their father, then and only then does Lyanna speak.

"End it."

Their father, who’d been reaching for his ale, paused midway.

"End what?" he asks, confused. "Everyone has gone to bed. The feast is over."

"I see that," Lyanna says through clenched teeth. "I cannot very well ask to you to end something that is over. I meant that you must end the betrothal."

Rickard Stark sits up in his seat, grips the direwolves on the arm.

"What are you saying, Lyanna?"

"Have I misspoken? I was sure I was clear. End it."

Ned sees his father search for words for a moment, unsure of how to approach his daughter. It unnerves Ned. Rickard Stark has never been unsure.

"I will do no such thing," he says, after a fashion. "You will marry Robert Baratheon. It is done."

"It is not," Lyanna says. "And it never will be done."

Their father sighs.

"Lyanna, I haven’t time for these tantrums. You are a lady. You are meant to wed a lord, and keep a castle, and bear children of your own. I pray your children won’t be as trying as you are."

Lyanna grits her teeth. “I will die before I marry Robert Baratheon, father. I will not do it. Winterfell is my home! I belong here!” She turns her accusatory eyes to Ned. “This is your doing. You talked him into this.”

Before Ned can respond, their father speaks, his voice stern and cold, indicating that he was ending the conversation.

"And Ned was right in doing so. You need a husband. The match is a great one. You will be the Lady of Storm’s End. And that is final."

"Brandon would never allow this! You could not do this if Brandon were here," Lyanna screams. "Brandon would never force me to do something I did not want."

Ned cannot help but think she is right. By rights, their father should have waited until Brandon was back from Barrowtown to announce Lyanna and Robert’s match, but he had done it early, probably anticipating that his heir would be against it.

"Last I checked," their father says, his voice even colder, "I was the Lord of Winterfell, not Brandon."

"Then I hope you die," Lyanna says savagely, blotches of red bright in her face. "I hope you die for this."

"Lya."

Benjen’s soft voice makes Ned jump. He had almost forgotten that his younger brother was in the hall. Lyanna whips around to face Benjen, some of the anger leaving her face, as she regards her youngest brother.

"That was unkind, Lyanna," he says weakly, merely trying to keep the peace, and though Lyanna does not snap at him, she snorts.

"What’s unkind is selling your daughter off to some stranger. I am a wolf, not a sheep. I will not be given away."

She stands abruptly, without asking to be excused and begins to make her way back to her chambers.

"You are the daughter of a great house," Rickard Stark says sharply, freezing her in her tracks. "And you will wed Robert Baratheon."

Lyanna laughs then, colder and with more cruelty than Ned ever believed his sister could manage.

"And just how do you plan to make me?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this drabble, B+L=J.

He takes her for the first time by the pool in the godswood. He steals her from her bed, pushes her on to her horse, and they ride, him leading, always him leading. They ride hard and fast, because he knows know other way. Neither does she. 

It is raining, washing away the summer snows, and everything is slick, and cool, and grey and white and red. Like them, just like them. 

They are not gentle. There are no sweet words, gentle caresses, soft kisses. He does not whisper his love in her ear and lay a blanket down for them beneath the stars. He does not undress her reverently or with care. 

There are teeth, and nails. Bruises on her arms, her neck, her breasts. Bite marks and scratches on them both. There are stones digging into her back, ripping her dress, destroying what parts he hasn’t already ruined in his haste to bare her. There is mud on her legs, her hands, and blood between her thighs as he thrusts, hard and fast between them. There are grunts and slaps, and she feels near an animal, like the direwolf they boast as a sigil. 

It feels like a prayer, like a sacrifice to the old gods, her blood and his seed mingling together, spilling to the ground. It feels like home, and family, and future. It feels this is what they were made for, that this is what the gods command. And when she opens her eyes, and gazes at the heart tree while he pulls her legs around him to drive himself deeper into her, she could swear the thing was smiling. Weeping and smiling all at once. 

Like her, just like her. 

When it is over, he extends his hand and helps pull her up from the ground. His hand is slick from rain, and from her, and they slide together in the mud. 

He does not look at her, does not kiss her tenderly. He gives her his tunic to cover herself, but does not help her attempt to tie the ruined laces of her bodice, and he does not help her up on to her horse. 

He gallops away before her, with nary a glace back to make sure she is okay. 

He knows she is. He knows she won’t want his help. He knows _her_.

She feels fierce like this. Some warrior maid who slays any enemy, takes any lover. She feels like she is free, like she can do anything.

He will not stay, will not help because she had told him, that in the old ways, the she-wolves of old, after they were wed, would sit at the heart tree alone, sticky with her maiden’s blood and her husband’s seed, and pray. For a strong son, for love, for winter, for anything. 

They wed, properly. Not in Septs at Riverrun and Storm’s End. Not to Southroners, who they will never love, not truly, not really. 

And so, Lyanna kneels at the foot of the heart tree, letting the rain wash her clean, and she prays—for escape, for freedom, for love, for her brother, for _Brandon_. 

It rains again, a fortnight later, when Rhaegar comes for her and weds her beneath the heart tree, and lays her down gently, and pushes up her skirts gently, and calls her wife gently. 

He is so gentle, so achingly slow. He kisses her with reverence, calls her a beauty, his wild beauty, his icy beauty. His hands are warm, even in the rain, and they dance across her wrists, and her legs. They caress her face. He calls her “Princess,” and tells her he loves her. 

This time when she opens her eyes and glances at the heart tree, it is scowling, and cruel, red face glowing in the night, and she shudders. He takes it as her pleasure and spills himself inside her soon. 

But it feels wrong, so wrong, because she has already been stolen from her bed, already been made a wife. She has already known love, is already the Lady of Winterfell. But if Rhaegar can have two wives, she can have two husbands, though she knows she will only ever have one in truth. 

She is _Brandon’s_. His sister, his lover, his wife, and the mother of his son. 

Rhaegar extends a hand to her, to help her from the ground, but she does not take it. She gets up on her own, and when he makes to help her fix her gown, she bats his hands away.

She does not need to pray. The Old Gods are not a part of this. 

She mounts her horse, and Rhaegar takes her hand in his, and they ride off into the rain, away from Winterfell, the North, from home, _from Brandon_. 

But Brandon already rides for Riverrun, to break his own vows to her, to take some other girl to wife, to make some other girl the Lady of Winterfell. 

It doesn’t matter. Lyanna will always be first. 

She tips her face up to the rain, lets it beat down on her, cool, and clean. It tastes like freedom. It tastes like Brandon. 

****  
It is raining when Ser Arthur pulls the shrieking babe from her body. He says the babe has come early, but Lyanna _knows_ , she _knows_. It rarely rains in the Red Mountains, but it is raining when he holds the babe up for her to see. To see his dark hair, and the eyes that will surely be grey. And she weeps and smiles, as she had at her first wedding. 

She places a kiss to her babe’s brow, and strokes his tiny hand as it pours outside of her tower, and though her skin is burning, her babe is blissfully cool, and he feels like Brandon. He feels like home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU

He doesn’t know what brings him to her apartment at 11:30 on a Friday. Not when Cat is away, visiting her parents, preparing for the wedding. He’s knows it’s probably improper to show up to his sister’s apartment drunk, and sleepy, and half angry. He knows this. He’s not an idiot.

But she’s his sister, his little sister, his _only_ sister, and she’s sitting on her floor, drinking her way through bottles of wine and crying and what kind of brother would he be if he didn’t high tail it over there?

So he shows up, and he’s drunk, and she’s drunk, and even with her puffy, red-rimmed eyes, and her hair up in a messy bun, she’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Even more beautiful than Cat with her perfect red hair and perfect blue eyes, and perfect figure.

She gives him a teary smile, leads him inside and plops back onto her floor. She’s watching _Chopped_ , of course she is, Food Network plays it for nine hours in a row most times, and drinking straight from a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. He’d given her that bottle for her birthday, just a few months ago. It’s a near $100 bottle, and she’s drinking straight from it. Without blinking, without so much as looking at him, she hands him a bottle of his own. He has to smile when he sees that it’s a cheap bottle of Yellowtail Merlot.

_Smart girl_ , he thinks, even in his drunken haze. _Keeps the good stuff for herself_.

They make small talk. He doesn’t ask her about the break up, she doesn’t ask him why he didn’t go with Cat. They sit— her on the floor, him on her giant chaise lounger— and they drink, straight from their respective bottles.

She’s puts on _Frozen_ , because that’s what she does when she’s sad. Lyanna watches Disney movies, and uses them as an excuse to cry. Never her own pain, she never admits to crying about her own pain. No, for as long as he can remember, she’s only ever cried about Mufasa dying, about Mulan’s father welcoming her home, about Belle screaming " _show me the beast._ ” Because that was Lyanna—able to love someone despite their worst qualities. Gods knew it was why she loved him.

Now she’s humming along to that infernal snowman song, with silent tears flowing down her cheeks. She looks achingly lovely, this young sister of his, and he wants to reach out and gather her up into her arms, he wants to tell her everything is going to be okay, but he knows better.

Life isn’t fair. Things don’t get better. He’d learned that when his mother died, when his father put too much pressure on him. When Barbrey started telling him that he had to have feelings for her, despite him making his intentions clear from the very beginning. When Cat looked at him with disappointment because he wasn’t everything she imagined her husband should be.

No, life isn’t fair, but it bothers him more that Lyanna knows that. For all her youth, she’s the most pessimistic of them all. _Realistic_ , she calls it. She’s the most cynical, the most jaded. Maybe it comes with being the only girl, maybe it comes with the heartbreaks she’s had, but Lyanna learned that life wasn’t fair before any of them, and _that_ is what is the unfairest of them all.

And still, when she looks at him, she’s never disappointed. She doesn’t pity him, doesn’t expect more than what he is. She looks at him and she knows him, all the way down to his soul. She levels him with a gaze, grey eyes locking on grey, and he knows she can see every bit of his soul. And she loves him anyway.

And he loves her. From the top of her head, to the soles of her feet, inside and out. Gods, he loves her, and he hates seeing the sadness in her face. He hates seeing her sitting on her floor, twirling the now empty bottle of wine between her fingers, staring with intent at _Frozen_ though he knows she’s seen it about twelve times before, and the screen could be blank and she’d still stare at it with that same melancholy intensity. She should be here, next to him, with her head on his shoulder so that he can breathe in her sweet smelling hair, and so that he can brush his fingers along her cheek and tell her how much he loves her.

And then, almost as if she can read his mind, and sometimes he truly believes she can, she rises gracefully from the floor, strolls over, and stretches out along side him on the chaise.

They arrange themselves automatically, his arm going around her, her head coming to rest on his chest, their fingers intertwining over her hip, as the trolls sing on the TV. Still they don’t speak, but this close he can feel her heartbeat, and he can feel her warmth, and it feels better than any wine or any whiskey. Lyanna is a balm to his soul, and when he looks down and sees her eyes finally dry, the red fading, he cannot help the spark of triumph that blossoms in his chest.

He has done this, as only he can. Not Ned, not Benjen, though he knows she loves them endlessly too. Just not the way she loves him.

His fingers stroke over her hip, right at the spot where her worn tee shirt rides up, and the waist of her yoga pants turns down. The skin there is smooth and soft, and as he reaches just beyond waist band of her pants, her skin gets unbearably hot.

She turns to look at him then, face-to-face, so close that her breath ghosts across his lips.

"Shouldn’t you be watching the movie," Lyanna whispers, but she’s leaning closer, and giving him that sweet smile that she reserves just for him, and suddenly he’s closing the gap and meeting her, pressing his chapped lips to her smooth ones.

She tastes like red wine, and sin. She tastes like bitterness and sweet salvation. And though he knows it’s wrong, he cannot bring himself to stop kissing her. He cannot stop his tongue from swiping across her full bottom lip, from pushing into her mouth. He cannot stop the way her teeth close on his bottom lip, biting and dragging.

He cannot stop his hands from pulling her tee shirt off, her bra, and cupping her breasts in his hands, tonguing her nipples, biting, making her moan. He cannot stop her hands palming his cock, first through his sweatpants, and then delving under them and his boxers, to stroke him with her hot little hands.

He does not stop slipping his hand under the waist band of her pants, then pulling them down, along with her thong, and pushing his tongue into her. She moans, loudly, hands balling into fists, slamming them against the couch, when his tongue circles her clit and he pushes two fingers inside of her.

"Brandon," she begs, and he finds it absurd that he cannot tell if she’s begging him to stop, or begging him to continue, but then she pushes her hips up to his face and he has his answer. He alternates his tongue on his clit, and then inside her, two and three fingers pushing in and curling, thumb pressing on her clit, and all the while Lyanna makes the sweetest sounds above him.

She comes two, three, _four_ times before he lets himself slide up her body, to the cradle of her thighs, and the moment she wraps her hand around his cock, to stroke him, to guide him inside her, he comes like some virgin on prom night.

He thinks to apologize, but she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him down so that he can lay his head on breast. He wraps his arms around her, listens to her heart pound in her chest, as her fingers brush over his ears, his beard, his back.

"I love you," he mumbles into her chest, directly over her heart, and her movements stutter for just a moment.

"I know," she says, voice barely above a whisper, and tips his face up and kisses him. Sweet, sure.

There’s no regret in that kiss, and it makes his heart swell, because it means as wrong as this is, she doesn’t regret it. She’s doesn’t hate him. She loves him. It scares him.

He gets up then, quickly, grabbing his clothes, heading to the bathroom, cleaning up. He stares at himself in her bathroom mirror and even with the toothpaste and mouthwash he takes from her medicine cabinet, he can still taste her on his tongue. It’s not a taste he wants to lose, or forget. He wants to remember this for as long as he can.

He washes his face again, trying to scrub the sin, the wrong, the bad off of him, but it’s in him, too deep to get rid of. It’s inside him now, growing and thriving with each little smile that Lyanna gives him.

When he comes back out to the living room, she is fully dressed again, and the empty wine bottles have all been put into the recycling bin. The living room has been cleared up, the chaise neatly tidied. It’s as though he’s never been there.

"I should go," he says, awkwardly, though it shouldn’t be awkward, not with Lyanna. But how can it not be awkward when—

"Yes," she says, interrupting his thoughts. "Yes, it’s late."

"Lya," he begins, unsure of what to say, but as always, she knows. She knows.

"I love you no matter what," she says, and stands on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

"No matter what?" He asks, fearfully, childishly. Because he’s getting married, and he just wants to kiss his sister, and Lyanna should hate him for it all.

But she just looks at him, with her big, solemn grey eyes. She looks right through him, and she echoes him.

"No matter what."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU

_She’s a bad influence on the children_ , is what Cat tells him, when Lyanna’s pregnancy is discovered. When Lyanna refuses to name the father. When Lyanna tells them she’ll raise the child on her own.

_Do you want Sansa to be like that?_

_Yes_ , is what Brandon thinks, because who wouldn’t want a daughter who was willful and strong, smart and independent. Who wouldn’t want their little girl to grow up fierce and funny, clever and kind.

But when Cat looks at Lyanna, she sees dirty nails, and grass stained soccer-shorts, and a swelling belly. A ringless finger, and a stubborn glare.

And that would never do.

 _It’ll be easier_ , is what Lyanna says, with the confidence that only an eighteen-year-old can muster. A pregnant eighteen-year-old moving out of her family’s house as if she were some shame, some dirty little secret, some stain they needed to be rid of. 

_But I am, Brandon_ , is what Lyanna had said, exasperated, but not upset. She’d argued and fussed. It’s just pretend, Brandon. Like when I was little. Just pretend. Pretend to hate her, pretend to throw her out, pretend he was as angry as Cat, and save his marriage.

 _You are not, and you are never something to be ashamed of_ , is what Brandon says to Lyanna. _She stays_ , is what he says to Cat.

Cat leaves. Takes Robb and Sansa with her, back to her father’s house.

Lyanna stays. Gives birth five months later. Gives birth to a little boy with dark, dark hair, and grey, grey eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Canon

He walks down the halls of Winterfell purposefully. He is to be Lord of these halls someday. Soon. He is a man grown and more than able. So he struts. He preens.

He falls face-forward onto the cold, hard, stone, and his ears ring with high-pitched, shrieking laughter.

_Lyanna_.

Trip wire. He inspects the thin strand of metal, tied between the posts of the hallway, and realizes it is the same wire that he thought he’d lost after the last hunt.

He snorts. Brandon Stark, bested by his little sister. Brandon bloody Stark who taught his little sister that trick to play on Ned... bested by the little beastling of Winterfell. The she-demon she-wolf.

And he looks up to berate, to reproach, to congratulate, to laugh because Lyanna truly is _his_ sister, and his eyes lock on hers and _oh_.

Lyanna is his little sister. She is a little girl with scraped knees, and stolen swords, and hair that could nest birds if someone didn’t remind her to brush it. Her dresses all have torn and muddied hems, and she’s stolen Benjen’s breeches and his tunics more times than he can count.

Lyanna is a little girl, with sharp shoulder blades, and thin wrists. She’s a skinny little thing, always running about, begging him to teach her to use a sword, perfect her bow technique. She is a wild little thing, half-a-horse, riding faster and surer than any man in Winterfell. Including himself. She is a she-demon she-wolf, and when he thinks upon the first time he called her that, he can see the way her eyes lit up, the way her cheeks flushed with pride. Only Lyanna would be proud to be such, because it meant she was _just like Brandon_.

Lyanna is his little sister, _his_ , in a way that she could never be Ned’s nor Benjen’s.

Brandon knows this, he does. But when he looks, up at her and sees her giggling, grey eyes sparkling, and cheeks flushed, he cannot help but think that she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

Lyanna is a wild thing, with a temper to match his and eyes like winter storms, and a smile like the sun itself. She is brand new steel—bright and shining and beautiful to look upon. Shining steel looks fragile, but only fools forget how deadly it is. Sharp, and sure, and deadly. That is his Lyanna.

His.

_Oh_.

He glares at her instead, ignores the pang her feels at her hurt expression, ignores how those grey eyes-- _just like his_ \-- darken, and stalks off to the stables, and plans to ride to the rills.

He beds Barbrey for the first time that night, filled with the knowledge that _she_ at least is not his little sister.

He finds that it is not enough.

Barbrey says she is _his_ , but the words are wrong, the woman is wrong, _he_ is wrong.

Lyanna is _his_.

His in a way that she can’t be anyone else’s.  And though he knows it is wrong, he has to tell her so.

He rides home.

 *

Much later. Years later. When he is caught in a device, reaching for a brand-new, shimmering, glimmering sword, he will think of Lyanna. He will think of her and her trip wire, and how she ensnared him like prey. How he fell to her.

 

How he fell for her.

 

And he will find that, to die for her, is enough.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon

She is sobbing in her room when he returns home from Barrowton.

News of her betrothal had spread like wildfire in the North, many of the Lords muttering about being passed over for some Southron jackanapes. Lord Dustin himself had been wroth. He had assumed that Brandon’s fostering meant that he’d have Lyanna for his heir.

As if Lyanna were a mere object to be _had_.

He finds, for the first time, that he does not know what to say to her. He presses his back against her door and simply stares at her shaking form, face buried in her pillows to muffle her sobs.

His heart aches for her.

He does not want his own betrothal. Catelyn Tully is beautiful, but she is prim, and proper, and all the things he is not. He cannot see her making him laugh. He cannot see her laughing at one of his japes. He cannot see sneaking into the kitchens at night to steal food with her, can’t imagine riding with her.

It makes him laugh, sometimes, to think that her lone flaw is that she is not _Lyanna_ , but Catelyn will make a good wife, still. He’s never particularly wanted a good wife though.

And if Catelyn would be _just_ a good wife, what would Robert Baratheon be?

He wants to tell her that it will not be so bad, that she will rule over Robert the way she rules over everyone at Winterfell, but it seems unkind to remind her that she will be so far away from home. It seems unkind to lie to her.

His chest tightens at the realization, because it means Lyanna will be so far away from _him_.

He goes to her, lays his body behind hers, gathers her into his arms. She buries her face in his chest, and sobs his name, so brokenly, that for a moment he hates his brother and his father.

He shushes her, stroking her hair, her back, her arms. He whispers that he’s here now, he whispers that he’ll protect her, he whispers that he loves her, but she barely stirs. When she finally tilts her face up to look at him, he kisses her, because he can think of no other way to tell her that he loves her.

He kisses her, and he feels her melt into his arms, feels her press herself against him.

“Thank you,” she whispers, but he doesn’t know what she’s thanking him for. But she says it again, and slides her hand into his breeches, and cups his cock, and _gods_ it feels like he should be thanking her.

But then she’s stroking him, and running her tongue over his teeth, and biting his earlobe, and he can’t find the words, just closes his eyes and loses himself in the feel of her.

She pulls her hand away, and his eyes fly open just in time to watch her lick her palm, saliva dripping from her fingers, before she wraps her hand around him again, and now her palm is hot and wet, and fuck, he’s coming before he can say anything, spurting all over Lyanna’s fist.

He opens his eyes, and watches her lick her palm clean, and his cock twitches again.

“Thank you,” she says, and claims his mouth in another kiss.


End file.
